


I Need You To Know

by the_most_beautiful_broom



Series: Season 5 Fix-its [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, POV Clarke, Reunions, Spoilers, please don't read if you haven't seen 5x03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 22:24:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14602998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_most_beautiful_broom/pseuds/the_most_beautiful_broom
Summary: What's running through Clarke's mind once the rover appearsClarke felt strength seeping out of her shaking arms because it couldn’t be, it couldn’t, she had to be hallucinating. The torture had gone on for too long and she was delirious and there was no way that he could—“I’m unarmed,” Bellamy called, his deep voice carrying across the clearing and Clarke wasn’t sure if she was breathing or not. “I just want to talk.”“Talk,” Charmaine shot back, and Clarke’s neck caved under the weight of her head. She felt herself sinking, felt herself lowering because it was Bellamy.Bellamy.Her Bellamy.He was back, he was here, he was alive and he came for her.





	I Need You To Know

For a moment, she thought they had killed her.

That’s what bright light meant, right, it’s what death was supposed to look like?

But Clarke couldn’t be dead, because her body was still racked with pain, blood roaring in her ears, bones burning with fire, and eyes impossibly slow to open. She felt the leaves under her, the sharp points where the ground was digging into her side and the burn of the collar, and she knew she wasn’t dead.

She blinked.

They were headlights, headlights of the rover, and the physical pain of her body became like a memory as the panic that swept through her. She gasped, pushing back the bile and blood mixing in her throat, staring in horror at the rover as it burst into the clearing.

_Madi, no._

She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until Zeke’s head turned sharply to her, his eyes widening. He’d turned away earlier, and she’d wished she could thank him for trying. He’d brought her water even earlier, told her about him and his life, distracted her from the fact that this camp, and at the hand of these prisoners, was where she would die. He didn’t deserve to see it.

At her words, he drew in a breath, looking back into the blinding lights of the rover with something like nervousness, while the rest of the crew looked mildly curious. He still lifted his gun.

But she couldn’t move.

Her arms still felt molten and every breath felt like pulling sparks into her lungs and her whole body was still burning and she could hardly keep her eyes open, terrified, fixed on the rover and willing Madi to back away.

“Come out with your hands high.”

Charmaine’s voice cracked across the clearing, the command in it ringing and Clarke wondered if her heart that had just weathered the fury of the collar would succumb at the sight of a child climbing from a rover. She heard the crew around her shifting on their feet, felt their anticipation and their hunger and she gritted her teeth, pushing herself off the ground, shaking with the effort of not collapsing on the ground.

It wasn’t the driver’s seat that opened.

She heard a breath, and a door slam, and she froze. Through the pounding of the blood in her ears and the gasps still ripping from her throat, through the boots on leaves and the cool metal of the guns that Eligius had pointed at the rover, Clarke had heard a breath. And it wasn’t possible, it couldn’t be…

But she couldn’t see.

The lights were too bright and everything in her vision was still hazy; her eyes were barely focusing and she was trembling so violently that she couldn’t be sure…

And yet she knew.

Knew that intake of breath that said _steady, steady_.

Knew the footfall that was at once audacious and controlled, measured and fearless.

Knew the hands silhouetted, raised in compliance, the shoulders that shifted and their width.

And Clarke felt strength seeping out of her shaking arms because it couldn’t be, it couldn’t, she had to be hallucinating. The torture had gone on for too long and she was delirious and there was no way that he could **—**      

“I’m unarmed,” Bellamy called, his deep voice carrying across the clearing and Clarke wasn’t sure if she was breathing or not. “I just want to talk.”

“Talk,” Charmaine shot back, and Clarke’s neck caved under the weight of her head. She felt herself sinking, felt herself lowering because it was Bellamy.

Bellamy.

Her Bellamy.

He was back, he was here, he was alive and he came for her.

It was too much.

Her eyes closed, painfully, the lights of the rover blinding and the echoes of electricity still shooting behind her closed lids, and she struggled to keep herself up.

“Give me one good reason not to kill you where you stand,” Charmaine said steadily and Clarke couldn’t stop the whimper that escaped her lips.

Not now.

Not like this.

Not after six years of praying for him, to him, needing him to be alive, just needing him. Not after he’d made it through space, burned through the atmosphere and fallen into her home, not now. Not here. Not because of her.

Every fiber in her being, every cell that was charred by the collar, every jolt that still echoed inside of her was screaming. No longer in agony, no longer in suffering but in abject terror because this was not how she got Bellamy back. Run, she wanted to yell at him, get back in the rover, take Madi away, go and live.

Live.  

But Bellamy wasn’t looking at her. He was staring down Charmaine, his gaze unflinching and commanding and his chin lifted slightly.

“How about I give you 283,” he said, and the words echoed over the clearing. Clarke had no idea what he meant, what he was saying; couldn’t look at anyone or anything other than the brown eyes in front of her, begging him, if anything was left of their unspoken connection, to hear her, head her, and flea. But he didn’t.

“That’s how many of your people are going to die,” Bellamy continued, his voice emphatic and his intent clear, “if you and I can’t make a deal.”

Clarke was sobbing quietly, and she thought desperately  that it was a horrible waste of energy, as gasps dripped out of her mouth, her cheeks now wet with tears as well as sweat.

She would have born anything.

Any amount of pain, any torture, any brutality, anything, to keep Madi safe. She could’ve endured it for as long as she had to, could have defied death forever and lived in burning agony if it meant that Madi would have time to get away. Every pain they inflicted on her was a punishment they couldn’t meet out to her daughter, and she wouldn’t hesitate, not for a moment.

But this, this she couldn’t bear.

She was rocking, her body trying to rise, desperately attempting to regain control as her worst nightmare played out before her. She forced her eyes open, fixing them on Bellamy’s face. His face, after six years, so familiar and so close, to her and thus to death and god she couldn’t bear it if anything happened.

He held up something and Clarke couldn’t make it out through the glare of the car and the shaking of her lashes, but something changed with the Eligius crew and Charmaine’s head tilted, however slightly. Bellamy shifted, and the rover backed away.

The rover.

The rover with Madi and who else? The radio had cackled out that there were five of them; if Bellamy were here then that must mean Raven and Monty and the others but who was missing? What two were gone? Had they not survived the landing, had Eligius already disposed of them, had they joined her father in the cold reaches of space?

Clarke made herself breathe, slow her mind, lower her gaze. Madi was safe. Bellamy was taking care of her, literally stepping in front of bullets for this girl he could hardly know. For her.

Clarke’s head lowered again, relief battling with pain and fear inside of her.

Charmaine let the rover go.

Bellamy was moving again; she heard the crunch of his boots on the ground but she couldn’t look up. Couldn’t see him, couldn’t look at him, without completely crumbling.

“That’s far enough,” Charmaine called, and Bellamy slowed.

And Clarke knew she was as gone as the Parthenon or Polis, because she needed to see him. So she looked.

Drank in the sight of him, starved for it and for him and somehow still not believing that it was real.

He stood tall.

Uncowed by the guns or the prisoners, unphased by them, head held high and his shoulder blades pressed together proudly. He looked defiant and he looked like heaven. The crease in his forehead, the bob of his adam’s apple, the scar above his lip and the fire in his eyes...the beard was new, but nothing about him was unfamiliar.

Clarke’s breath left her, and she wished she could leave this body too. Float on the air like the wind, like a mist, wrap herself around him and be near him, with him. But she was shaking on the ground, trapped, and he was planted in front of her, pinned in place by the sights of half a dozen guns. Also trapped.

“Two hundred, eighty three lives,” Charmaine said slowly, “for what?”

Bellamy wasn’t looking at the general.

His eyes were on Clarke and she realized she was still crying. Her eyes brimming, her heart pounding, her breath coming in little gasps because he was here and he was real and it had all been worth it because he was alive, but god for how long.   

“She must be pretty important to you,” Charmaine continued and it wasn’t a question, or a challenge, and Clarke’s heart clenched.

What did it matter how important she was to him; what mattered was how important he was to her. She had faced hell for him, she carried the weight of every life she’d surrendered for him, she would do all of it, every bit of it, for him. And the thought that she might lose him, after everything, hurt more than the currents that had ripped through her body just moments ago.

She made herself look, made herself meet his eyes. Had to stare at him, had to let him know that it was okay. She was okay.

But what she read in his eyes wasn’t a need for assurance.

It was so much more.

 _I’ve got you_ , his eyes said.

I wasn’t here but now I am and you don’t have to do this alone. Come on, Clarke, how do we always do things?

 _Together,_ his eyes said.  

You and me. Against everything, against the world and anyone who dares.  

 _I’m sorry_.

Sorry for leaving, for not waiting, for letting you be alone, for not knowing.

 _I didn’t know_.  

Didn’t know you were here, alone, hurting, alive.

 _I didn’t hear you_.

Didn’t hear you, though Madi told me you tried every day. We tried, we tried so hard, but we could get through.

 _I missed you_.

Every day, every time, every glance I took down at earth was a reminder that we were apart. I thought it was forever, but now that I know it isn’t, I need you, and I need you to know…

_I...I need you to know..._

And something flickered behind his eyes, something they’d never said and never dared to, but thought every moment because it was the beat of their hearts and the rhythm that still matched each other.

Bellamy didn’t waver, didn’t drop her gaze, didn’t look away and as he looked into her, through her, she saw him accept it.

It was like everything was waiting, suspended, breath held and heart stilled and in that moment; though Charmaine hadn’t asked it as a question or a challenge, Bellamy’s deep voice, thick with emotion and unwavering in conviction, rumbled through the silence.

“She is.”

And Clarke collapsed.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey fam! SO you probably noticed, but I changed a line of dialog: in the show Charmaine asks "283 lives, for one?" and here she asks "for what". The first time I saw the scene, I heard 'for what', and was struck by how brutal that sentiment is. If that were the line, she'd be asking Bellamy for Clarke's value, not her life, and I wanted to use that here. I used Clarke's addled state as an excuse to slip that in, and give another interpretation of the scene. Bellamy isn't bartering for a life, he's bartering for Clarke, and that's what I wanted to convey here. hope you can forgive me for that!


End file.
